thank you for such an informative reply.
as far as I've noticed I can see the GPS info only using the program PMB and it's not possible to see this info at any other picture view program. is there any way to have the date and location superimposed on the image? it's much easier to see the image and know the date and the location on any other computer that doesn't have PMB installed.
also I wish my pictures be set in a folder that contains the date and time instead of standard DSC00000 image titles. I tried PMB software and it doesn't help with it at all...
please do help to find the solution

Hopefully someone else can help with the PMB - to be honest, I don't use it. I have a Windows computer, and I prefer to load my photos just using the standard Windows Picture downloader that auto-starts whenever you plug in a USB cable or a card into a card reader. With it, you have the option to tell the computer when downloading the photos what folder to put them in, and what name to give them all.

As for seeing the date in any other photo browser or tool - it actually should be very easy even without the date on the photo. I'm sure Mac computers have a similar function but I don't know where it is...on Windows computers, if you go into 'Windows Explorer', where you can see all your folders...and pull up the folder with your photos stored in it, then hovering the mouse over each thumbnail will display the title, the date of the photo, and the memory size of the photo. If you right-click the thumbnails, you can bring up even more data by going to 'properties'. By saving photos in my own folders that I name myself, I can separate them easily - by event (cruise, disney, everglades, etc), and/or by including dates in the folder title (everglades Apr09, everglades Mar10, etc).

I've always just used Windows itself to load, browse, and move around my photos, rather than the camera's software. I edit my photos in Paint Shop Pro, or PSP as it's known...that and Photoshop are two of the most popular photo editor programs.

I have Windows Vista and it's quite a problem to load the pictures into separate folders if they were shot on different dates as by default it loads all the images into the same folder.
in PMB software it's possible to choose images into the specified folder but not edit the titles...
just nothing works the way I wish it would.

by some reason all the images taken by camera have some sort of distortion at both left and right sides of the image that makes the image details look not naturally wide. is there any way to correct it?

You can also find some Historical Buildings in Malmö, that I rendered out in 1920x1080 = more level of detail.

I am satisfied with this lovely small point and shoot camera, the biggest drawback is the sound quality from the microphone. I believe the microphone issue should be able to be fixed with an update firmware, I needed to work really hard in post to get a decent sound out of it.

To zackiedawg,
I checked back on this forum today and saw your recent messages. I am surprised to learn that it takes a few seconds to complete a HHT shot. Then I wonder how useful HHT would be in real life except for stationary dark scenes. Granted it's a nice feature that most rivals don't have yet.

I searched around other sites on HX5V, and it seems to get mixed reviews. Some are very happy and some users are not so. The most common criticism is a bit bland, soft pictures due to aggressive noise reduction smudging details. Some users point out a bit yellowish color cast at times. I saw many sample pictures and should agree to that yellowish cast, though it's not very severe and I would hardly notice it unless I compare it with other cameras.

The time it takes for the HHT shot isn't all shooting time - the actual frames are taken at approx. 10fps - so the 6 frames can come off as fast as around 1/2 second. If the shutter speed is slower, such as in very low light, you might be shooting 6 frames at 1/30 or 1/60 or so, in which case it might run you 3/4 second.

The extra second or two is the processing time for the camera to perform the aligning and stacking, before you're ready to take your next shot. You don't have to keep still anymore - the actual frames have already been snapped.

The mode is very very good in low light, and high ISO...the results can be astounding for a compact sensor. I snapped this in my living room (it's painted gold, not yellow cast!) at ISO3200 in HHT mode with my TX1, handheld:

Here, I did 3 shot comparisons: standard P mode at ISO3200, standard P mode at ISO1600, and Hand-held twilight, which chose ISO2500. This is the scene resized:

Pmode, ISO3200:

Pmode, ISO1600:

HHT mode, ISO2500:

Here are 100% crops from the above shots, straight from camera:

Pmode, ISO3200:

Pmode, ISO1600:

HHT mode, ISO2500:

The detail increase, the lower noise, the cleaner edges, the extra shadow definition, etc all speak to how useful the mode can be. I would agree the Sony noise reduction in standard modes are higher than other cameras - in some ways the high ISO performance on these Sony cams is still better than some rivals, but in some other ways, not so much. But throw HHT mode into the mix, and they can absolutely crush any small sensor competition, and in fact most other compact cameras.

It doesn't completely rule out using the mode when there's movement in the frame...it just takes some logical analysis of the situation to determine if the movement is small enough for the camera to overcome when stacking without too much blur. I use HHT on moving subjects too - like my cat, or scenes with people moving around in them at night. It still allows these cameras to be much more usable in low light environments than most any other compact camera. Here's my cat at ISO3200 in HHT mode...she was sitting mostly still, but cats are always fidgeting, so this still gives an idea of how the camera can handle it - there's actually some half-decent fur detail, at ISO3200, and extremely low noise:

This is a quickie handheld snap in HHT mode, walking around a shopping area at night...lots of people moving around in the shot, ISO500 (in P mode, this would have required ISO800-1600) and 1/8 shutter speed (x6 frames). Some motion blur in the people if you look close, but low noise in a very dark scene and good detail:

Just to give some idea. Of course, I am shooting on a TX1 - not an HX5. There could be some subtle differences. From the review here though, the HHT and AMB modes appear to produce similar results and are equally usable. As for yellow cast, that may be unique to the HX5, but the easiest cure for me would be to get the WB right when you really want to make sure the shot comes out true - the fact that the camera has manual WB is excellent, and means perfect color with no cast is possible every time if you're willing to get in there and manually control it.

Thanks zackiedawg with your nice pictures,
I especially like your HHT shot of the cat, very impressive. I think HHT mode is pretty good for small motion or your cat was very calm at that time or both. It pretty much clears my concern on HHT, AMB modes.

I did some search on Sony TX line of cameras, and I noticed that TX1, TX5, TX7 were released in short period of time from late last year. They all seem to have similar specs. I wonder what the major differences are.

From what I can tell, the major differences on the TX series cams are:

TX1 - came out first, is the smallest.
TX7 - came out next...is a little larger in size, adds better video capability, adds HDR mode, lens is wider at 25mm vs. 36mm, but not as long on telephoto
TX5 - came out most recently...is closer to TX1 in size, gets the HDR from the TX7, but not as good video. Has same 25mm wide lens as TX7. Adds a waterproof, shockproof, and dustproof body.

I wonder how long it takes to be ready for next shot after taking one HHT shot. I saw a HX5V user on amazon.com reported that it takes more than 15 seconds of processing to get ready for next HHT shot. If true, that's awfully long lag time.

It seems to be directly related to how long the shutter speed was for each frame. If I use HHT in good daylight, with a shutter speed of 1/500 or so, then the shots are taken in about 1/3 second, and the total processing time before the finished product displays on screen is about 2-3 seconds. I can half-press shutter and be ready for next shot in about 4 seconds total. if however I'm using HHT mode in low light, and have a shutter speed of, say 1/30, the shots may take 3/4-1 second total to take, and another 4-5 seconds to process...so it's about 7-8 seconds to be ready for another shot.

Those are all with the TX1 - I couldn't confirm if other cameras perform faster or slower. All in all, it seems a reasonable processing time for low light night shots handheld. I've never been anywhere near as bad as 10-15 seconds though, with any HHT or AMB shots.

I wonder if that other poster may have been confusing the image review as part of the processing time? Most of these Sony cameras will display the shot after you've snapped it, for 3-4 seconds. The HHT mode does the same, but after it does the processing. If you took a night shot with an 8 second processing time, then sat through the 4 second review image too...then lined up and half pressed to shoot - then I could see where they might have pulled up that figure of 15 seconds. But they may not know that you can half-press the shutter at any time during image review and the camera will snap back to shooting mode and focus immediately.

I have a following dilemma.
I bought a spare battery NP-BG1 for my camera. I had it charged the same evening, but didn't use it until the battery supplied with camera got flat. then I replaced the battery with a spare one, but as soon as my camera starts with NP-BG1 it shuts down right away with a message that the battery is flat.
what can it mean, is the NP-BG1 battery faulty? or something wrong with a camera?

It looks like one of the most common complains on Sony P&S picture quality is the yellow cast in the color, especially indoors. After looking at many sample photos from both indoors, outdoors, I couldn't help but agree to it. If you have only Sonys and don't feel bad on it, that would go unnoticed likely. But if you have other brand's camera to compare, it would be very apparent.
Sony's color seems to be too warm. While this can be corrected in photo editing software, there is no way to change it inside the camera. For most people who use P&S cameras to take pictures straight to computers, printing, this is not so good.